Archive for February, 2016|Monthly archive page

The Southampton branch of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) and the Centre for Health, Ethics and Law (HEAL) will be co-hosting a panel discussion on improving access to medicines on 25 February at 7pm in the Physics Building, Lecture Theatre B (46/2003), on Highfield Campus of the University of Southampton.

We have the pleasure of hosting two interesting talks in February by Drs. Kingma and Woollard (Southampton) and Dr. Kristin Voigt (McGill/Oxford), details of which you’ll find below.We also have included information about an upcoming workshop on the breastfeeding dilemma, which you might be interested in.

According to common-sense morality and the law, there are much stronger constraints against doing harm than merely allowing harm or failing to benefit: doing harm is much harder to justify than merely allowing harm or failing to benefit; other things being equal, someone who does harm is seen as deserving much more blame and guilt than someone who merely allows harm; we can interfere to stop a person doing harm in a way that we could not interfere to prevent someone merely allowing harm. Mothers and pregnant women who fail to act in the best interests of their children are often treated as doing harm to others, rather than merely allowing harm or failing to benefit – and subjected to the kinds of blame, guilt and interference that go with doing harm. However, we argue that the distinction between doing and allowing does not apply easily in pregnancy.

2. February 24th, 4pm, 04/4005

Kristin Voigt

“The Testimonial injustice and the disclosure of ‘personal conflicts of interest’”

Miranda Fricker’s recent work calls attention to problems of testimonial injustice, i.e. injustice relating to how individuals are perceived in their capacity as ‘knowers’. In this paper, I consider Fricker’s concept of testimonial injustice in relation to speakers’ duties to reveal (or conceal) personal information about themselves. Specifically, I will focus on so-called ‘personal conflicts of interest’. While in many disciplines, academic journals standardly require authors to disclose financial interests, authors are sometimes also encouraged to disclose non-financial, ‘personal’ interests. In this paper, I argue, first, that disclosures of personal characteristics can raise problems of testimonial injustice: they can (a) unfairly undermine researchers’ credibility and (b) have broader effects that contribute to testimonial injustice. Second, the discussion highlights that duties of testimonial injustice arise not only when we act as hearers but also when act as speakers; I discuss three specific duties of this kind.

3. “The Breastfeeding Dilemma”

10am – 4pm, 23rd March 2016, London Southbank University,

Keyworth Centre, Keyworth Street, London SE1 6NG.

DESCRIPTION

This workshop brings together academics, policy makers, medical professionals, parental support organisations, members of the media, mothers and members of the public to address the Breastfeeding Dilemma: how do we encourage breastfeeding and support women in doing so, without subjecting those who choose not to breastfeed, or are unable to do so, to shame and guilt with potentially devastating consequences? We explore philosophical mistakes in the way we talk and think about infant feeding choices and the impact pressure to breastfeed can have on maternal health and the experience of new motherhood.

On 7 May, Jonathan Montgomery gave the inaugural HEAL annual lecture on 'Bioethics As A Governance Practice'. It was a stimulating and engaging lecture which has set the standard for HEAL's annual lecture series.